Canada is seeing an “unprecedented” wildfire season so far, and summer hasn’t even begun. Though it is not yet determined what exactly has caused a number of this year’s earlier-than-usual and more widespread wildfires, there are two common reasons wildfires begin.
Wildfires typically start either from lightning or from human activity, according to fire expert and Queen’s University fellow Edward Struzik.
Struzik said that lightning ignites between a third to a half of the fires seen in Canada, but the majority of cases are human-caused.
The latter could be related to industrial activity, such as vehicles travelling through forests that may have a hot muffler and come into contact with really brittle kindling or dry grass, as well as people dropping cigarettes or letting a campfire smolder, he said.